Yo I feel like I have lost days of my life due to digital causes. Although I am an extrovert, the almost constant drip of WhatsApp communications can exhaust me; My anxiety about not instantly responding to everyone is simmering. Add to that the element of performance and the worry that showing you care is measured in the messages you send… and it can all become too much.
“Where has Remona gone?” A friend panicked when I was absent while juggling a deadline, babysitting, and entertaining guests at home. The accumulation of 248 unread messages in a single group, including podcast voice notes, made me feel like a bad person for being absent. Sometimes I’m happy to be completely mute, as I was in an unnecessarily large group that I was added to without consent. I lay low for years between unsolicited selfies from people I barely knew and forwarded messages that needed to be forwarded more or you’d face some disaster, until someone realized I was lurking and ratted me out in front of the 43 members. I felt mortified.
While I haven’t been bold enough to go on a full-fledged “app stickiness,” I have managed to significantly reduce my messaging over the past few years. My emancipation from the digital manager has been gradual: it began with the removal of my “last seen” status. I discovered that it gave me permission to be less available, less needy, and no longer dependent on receiving answers.
Being less present on the app has made me more aware of time. Instead of indulging in the hamster wheel of answers, I’ve made room for other things: morning stretches instead of opening the app as soon as I open my eyes; Reclaiming my attention span to read a real book and finish it, like I used to. I even took up knitting: I managed to knit an Ewok hoodie for my little niece, which took me three years, but if I hadn’t cut back on my commitment to WhatsApp, it probably would have taken me five. Being off the grid has also helped me sort out my jumbled brain, allowing me to think more creatively. I’m even learning Korean on Duolingo.
However, I fully appreciate the connection that WhatsApp offers. It’s a place where we can share prayers for each other’s sick parents, lift a friend’s heart after a bad date, hold back the pain and frustration while the world is on fire and hope in humanity seems bleak. WhatsApp is home to so many intense emotions, intimate experiences, and a hodgepodge of personalities, while compressing complex thoughts and feelings into a quick conversation that can be easily misinterpreted. Perhaps the intensity and dichotomy—the joy and stress it brings me, the longing for connection and the rush of hyperconnection—is precisely why it’s a place where I can feel overwhelmed.
I have considered deleting the app completely. But can I really sacrifice seeing photos of my niece dressed as Oompa Loompa for World Book Day? Can I really walk away from my friends who encourage me and support me and delight in the mundane details of my life?
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I still need WhatsApp, but less than before. By suppressing myself, I have learned to control my cravings. I’m finally learning to unplug without experiencing acute Fomo; Instead of a hard sacrifice, I have adjusted the limits. My friends have also adjusted their expectations: “She will get back to us in 3 to 5 business days,” one said. But by giving myself permission to not feel pressured, I have begun to enjoy a new freedom. Now, I simply have to resist the yoke of a new app: the coercive lure of maintaining a Duolingo streak.